Coffee Break. Part 1

Pune hasn't been as tenebrous as I thought it'd be. Or maybe I just like to overdo things, and maybe it was never gonna be as boring as I made it out to be. The campus had been so insanely nice to me over the last four months, I'd forgotten I had a life in Pune. I'm typing this in Cafe Coffee Break. Sitting alone, as usual. Been ages since THAT happened. Memories of hours spent here with a PG Wodehouse and Mochaccilo to keep me company flood back. Pre-entrance exam days. What times they used to be. The solitude, the intense thinking about literally nothingness, the awesome coffee this place gives me, the ocassional catching of the eye of a cute girl sitting somewhere around, all of it. Never since I've left for campus have I gotten that kind of solitude. It's people all around the place, people in hostel, people in class, people when I go to Nescafe or Monginis. Maybe that's what making the Pune days not half as bad as I thought they'd be. Lonliness reloaded.


A JEE class reunion happened yesterday. With the people I'd spent the most constructive two years with. Maybe not as academically constructive as past ones. I was quite at a loss of thoughts when our prof called it "a gathering of the future of India". Didn't last too long. First thing I wondered about was the "India" part. I don't wanna enter that cliched area, but the whole brain-drain saga came to me. Then I wondered, almost aloud, about the whole phrase. How many of us would actually make the difference? How many of us would be lost in the sea of dreamers who just wanted to make a difference? How many of us knew how vast that sea actually was and how many of us just thought we knew? How many of us even cared? How many of us were there just for the free food? I casually threw a look around, as if they were hearing me and waiting to answer. A guy next to me was playing Snake on his phone.

The food was good, though.


Had a wonderful meeting with the HCL main guy of the Pune office. It was routine work, but my first stunt at the routine. Amazing how accurately Chief and his cronies had worked out the sponsorshup simulation game. Complete with reactions and expressions and talking styles.

It's barely 7:30 pm. Coffee's really good. It's cold outside. Possibly the first time I've had a hot cuppa here. I can see a couple hitting each other outside. I can't say whether they're being playful or fighting. I wonder why I'm wondering that.

Anywho, I'm off. More from this place later.